Ambidextrous first-rounder Cijntje ready to amaze
Daniel Kramer
@DKramer_This story was excerpted from Daniel Kramer’s Mariners Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.
SEATTLE -- Jurrangelo Cijntje was a natural-born lefty, but he began throwing from his right side at just six years old in an effort to emulate his father, Mechangelo, a professional ballplayer in the Netherlands. It was a youthful quirk, but one clearly worth exploring further.
Little did he -- or certainly, the Mariners -- know that 15 years later, Cijntje would become arguably the most intriguing pitcher to join the organization. The club selected the righty- and lefty-throwing hurler out of Mississippi State on Sunday night with their first-round pick in the 2024 MLB Draft, at No. 15 overall.
He's agreed to terms at full slot value ($4,880,900), according to a source. It's pending a physical, which will take place in the coming days when he visits Seattle.
“I don't think I've ever seen this in my lifetime in scouting, let alone as a player,” Mariners director of amateur scouting Scott Hunter said, “that somebody could just pick up a baseball [with his right hand] and then in between and go, 'All right, I'll throw 93 mph with my left hand now’ -- and he can do that.”
Hunter has been with the organization since 2016 and in professional baseball for over 30 years. Under his watch, and with the collaboration of the rest of Seattle’s front office, the Mariners have mostly hit on each of their first-round picks -- especially college pitchers. Logan Gilbert (2018) and George Kirby (2019) have been the poster boys in this specific section of homegrown talent, with each blossoming into All-Stars.
But Cijntje will present their most unique case study yet, an ambidextrous set of arms with the potential to amaze.
“I like the way they care about their players,” said Cijntje, who met with the Mariners at the MLB Draft Combine last month, “how their development is, especially with pitchers. ... And I liked their philosophy, too.”
Cijntje doesn’t appear to be fazed by the bright lights, either. He was one of the handful of Draft picks on site at All-Star Week in Arlington, and he even stuck around for batting practice ahead of the Home Run Derby on Monday, where he connected with Gilbert and Andrés Mu?oz.
“I've been following them for a good couple months now, especially before the season,” Cijntje said.
It’s impossibly too early to decipher what Cijntje will look like when he reaches the Majors, especially with such a unique skillset. As a hybrid comparison, most two-way players drafted don’t pan out from both sides as a finished product; there is only one Shohei Ohtani, after all.
But the Mariners have made it clear that they intend to let him decide if he wants to keep pitching from both arms -- and Cijntje has made it clear that he intends to transcend.
“Now looking forward, I always want to develop, especially from the left side and I can get better on the right side, too,” Cijntje said. “But if I get an opportunity like they said they will let me decide, I would like to stick to both sides.”
The Mariners clearly view him as a starter, given how high he was selected. But the rigors of professional baseball will certainly test his endurance. All pitchers operate with a specific routine; some -- like Gilbert -- are significantly more nuanced. But Cijntje will present the Mariners’ high-performance staff with a new frontier. Cijntje felt discomfort from the left side late last season, which prompted him to move exclusively to the right down the stretch.
“It's not like difficult, but it just takes time, especially because you've got to take care of both,” Cijntje said. “Like if I take care of the right side, I have to do the same from the left side. So I don't try to rush anything. ... If it's good for my body too, and especially throwing from both sides pretty good, it takes time to actually go through the process and not just rush anything.”
How he utilizes both arms at the next level will be just as intriguing. Cijntje has “more power” and is “crisper” from the right side, Hunter said, and he obviously throws from there more often. But the left side has a sinker/slider combination that Cijntje thinks can also become effective at the pro level.
There are also rules that will be in play in how he uses each arm; basically he has to commit to one or the other for each batter.
The Mariners have always eased their pitching Draft picks into action, almost never sending their high-school arms to a Minors affiliate until the following year. But because Cijntje came from college, where -- or if -- he reports later this summer will also be worth following, as Hunter indicated that they are still unsure if he'll pitch in live games this season.